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| FishTails |
Kevin Mcclain wins West Virginia BASS Federation State Championship
West Virginia BASS Federation
www.wvbass.com
John Burdette
President
25 West Main Street
Buckhannon, WV 26201
(304) 472-3600 (W)
(304) 472-6221 (H)
jburdette@wvbass.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
10/25/07 - Fairmont, WV
It was an interesting set of circumstances Kevin Mcclain found himself in that led him to capture the title of
State Champion Sunday.
The 2007 West Virginia BASS Federation State Championship tournament was held on the Monongahela River at Prickett's
Fort in Fairmont, West Virginia October 20 and 21.
Mcclain, 34, an Aircraft Maintenance Supervisor for Bombardier Aerospace in Bridgeport, West Virginia has been
fishing competitively for four years in the WVBF. This is his second time he made the state team in four years,
an achievement that is not easy to attain.
What led Mcclain to his victory was a belief that he had to approach the tournament fishing with a different strategy
than he normally does on his home water. "I had to try to do something different than everybody else was
going to be doing. There are a lot of great fishermen to make it to this level. I didn't want to be beating the
same banks as everyone else," Mcclain said.
Just two weeks prior, Mcclain had lent his bass boat to a friend to fish in the WVBF Northern Division Qualifier
in New Martinsville, West Virginia. As luck would have it, during the tournament, the lower unit of the motor
was completely demolished, leaving Mcclain boatless.
Word of his misfortune spread around the bass fishing community quickly. Within a few days, Mcclain had three
boats show up in his drive way, all lent by his good friends. "My wife Carrie said this is getting ridiculous
- where are all of these boats coming from?" Mcclain said. They were just married in September.
One of the boats that was lent to him was a small aluminum bass boat - The kind of boat that could traverse very
shallow water. That proved to be one of the keys to his victory.
"I caught all of those fish in skinny water," Mcclain said. "It was a place you couldn't get to
in a big fiberglass boat." In fact, Mcclain said the area he won the tournament in he had never fished until
two weeks prior to the tournament.
His two-day total was 11.93. The first day he brought five bass to the scales two largemouth and three smallmouth
bass. Day two, he weighed one smallmouth, one largemouth and one spotted bass. His big fish for the tournament
was a 2.05 lb bass.
All of his fish came on three baits: a white pearl Zoom Fluke, a green pumpkin colored Reaction Innovations Sweet
Beaver, and a buzzbait.
Mcclain said the temperature of the water he was fishing was 65 degrees and was clear.
2007 has been a good year for Mcclain. He and his fishing partner Frankie Haught won the "King of the Mon
Bass Tournament" earlier this spring. They finished second in the WVBF Buddy Trail. And finished second
in the West Virginia BASS Federation 2007 Invitational Championship on The Mon River this past July.
Mcclain qualified for the State Championship by finishing in the top four teams in the WVBF Buddy Trail in 2007.
"The Buddy Trail is really headed in the right direction." "I hear it from guys all over the state
that the trail is top notch," Mcclain said.
The rest of the 120 angler field for the State Championship made it to Fairmont through the Northern, Southern
and Central qualifying tournaments held recently.
The top 13 anglers will make up the 2008 West Virginia BASS Federation State Team that will compete against other
state teams from Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington DC, and New Jersey in the Mid-Atlantic
Divisional to be held next September in Pennsylvania.
The 2008 WVBF State Team is: Kevin Mcclain, James Collins, Robby Fleshman, Rickey Farmer, Shawn Stewart, Eric
Stewart, Rodney Elkins, Tom Berga, Jeremy Byers, Brad Billeter, Robert Harkness, Mark Godwin, and Ryan Harmon.
The West Virginia Bass Federation (WVBF) is a state wide organization which formed in 1973. Presently, the WVBF
has approximately 800 members in 64 clubs throughout the State of West Virginia. They are currently affiliated
with The BASS Federation (TBF) as a shareholder. The WVBF was formed to stimulate public awareness of bass fishing
as a major sport, to offer the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources their organized moral and political
support and encouragement, to promote full adherence to all conservation codes and to demand adequate water standards
and detect and report any polluter and call public and political attention to crime, to improve skills as bass
anglers through fellowship and friendly exchange of expert bass catching techniques and ideas, to promote and encourage
youth fishing and love for this great recreation and to function as a dynamic and effective link with individual
chapters and other federations embracing the principles and purposes of TBF. |
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